'Ready2Teach is not improved education' and more letters to the editors

Ready2Teach is not improved education

Having read the newspaper on June 20, I now understand the problem with American education. "Help on the way for Tennessee teachers," proclaims the headline.

I wish I could believe it. I first feared I had read the article without understanding it. Actually, there is nothing to understand. The piece is merely a string of clichés: Bold new initiative, proactive effort, capstone performance-based assessment, national conversation, data-informed decisions and other meaningless phrases - all purporting to describe a program called Ready2Teach. The title, devised apparently by someone trying too hard to be cute, is odious as an abbreviation that is ungrammatical and saves but a single character.

The foregoing barbarisms convey no information and describe nothing. How Ready2Teach is better than McGuffey's Readers is not explained, nor is there any recognition that an explanation might be owed. The proceed not from an air-headed feature writer, but from John Morgan, chancellor of the Board of Regents.

Good writing and good thinking are soul mates. They are essential to any sound program of education. If the grand poohbahs of the education establishment write and think on this level, what hope exists for parents and children?

BARBARA S. ARTHUR


Anti-Islamists have right to free speech

Times opinion page editor Pam Sohn stated in her editorial on June 6 that she was embarrassed only two times to be Southern or Tennessean. Maybe she should be embarrassed a third time for lecturing nearly 600 people for exercising their right to free speech and knowing so little about the subject in question.

First, Islam and Christianity are two different religions. Two, Allah of the Koran is not the same god as the God of the Bible. Three, they think if you are not a Muslim, you are an infidel and inferior to them. Four, Sharia law; their supreme law of the land, is above our Constitution - in their view.

These are just a few examples, but you get my point. For a more comprehensive study of Islam, there is an informative booklet titled, "Sharia law for Non-Muslims," which is published by the Center for the Study of Political Islam.

Now, a few examples of how the Bible differs from the Koran. The God of the Bible is the creator of heaven and earth. God has a son. Allah does not. God sent his son to die for us so we can have everlasting life. The Koran teaches that if you convert to Christianity, you are subject to death.

Sohn asks, "What would Jesus do?" Maybe he would quote the verse, "You shall have no other gods before me."

FRANK W. HERMAN, Cleveland, Tenn.

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